Act On Your Own Impulse
by nicolecatherine
Summary: Imogen and Eli go to a psychiatric hospital, Aspen Springs. They harm themselves as outlets and when they end up taking it too far, they were shipped off to the treatment center. Meeting each other after a therapy group, they seemed to bond over their misfortunes. Will their similarities hold them together, or tear them apart? (Loosely based off the book Impulse by Ellen Hopkins)


Hi guys! This originally was a plot my friend and I thought up, but we figured this was more of a writing plot than an interacting one. So we decided to finish it as fanfiction! This was also co-written by her, (She writes as Eli). Hope you all enjoy!

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Eli Goldsworthy picked at a loose thread that hung from the knee of his Aspen Springs sweatpants, his skin perspiring under the heat of Dr. Boston's stare. He focused his gaze on the spit-shined tile floor and did all he could to avoid any form of eye contact. Ever since being admitted into the treatment center for loonies like himself, he hadn't said much to anyone.

Whenever a nurse happened to stop by his room to provide him with his daily dose of Prozac, he never so much as thanked her or gave her a second glance. His shrink had been struggling to get more than a few words out of him in their hour-long sessions with no success. He wasn't about to give Dr. Boston what everyone else had been trying to obtain from him for the past fourteen days - answers.

The woman had brought him into her office that morning to discuss bumping him up to Level One, although he was sure she was hoping to get some sort of response. After spending an intense two weeks locked away in his 8x10 windowless prison at Level Zero, Eli was finally allowed to attend school and group sessions with the other inmates. He'd passed by a few of them in the hallways while on his way to the bathroom, tightly escorted by an orderly.

They had openly scrutinized him, but he detected an underlying sense of understanding in their eyes. While he didn't exactly look forward to doing schoolwork and being around other crazies, anything was better than sitting in his room surrounded by silence and unwavering air. Not to mention the mental images that were born in the still of the suffocating chamber.

His mind was a battleground and he was the fallen soldier. When left alone with the unforgiving back and forth of his thoughts, he would begin to falter, scraping at the edges of his skull for some sort of stability. After spending an hour or two at war with the demons that threatened to devour him, he would tumble into an endless swirl of dark blue that usually left him begging for sleep. Eli loved sleep - it was like death, but without the commitment.

He would weave in and out of heavy dreams that drilled through to his fractured soul and left him gasping for breath upon his awakening. Even while sitting upright in the uncomfortable plaster of the chair, he was fighting off the indigo sea that seemed to swamp his brain.

"Well, Eli…" Dr. Boston hummed softly.

"I wish you were willing to tell me more about what happened and why you're here." She paused as if giving him the chance to talk, but he remained silent, his hands folded neatly in his lap.

His black nail polish was beginning to chip and his middle finger felt empty without the comforting metal of his ring around it. He felt like he had been stripped completely of his personality, forced to succumb to a robotic state of living in Aspen Springs. Death would have been easier to adjust to, and he vowed to himself that as soon as he got out of this place, he would try harder to make his desire to stop living a reality. No more waking up into hell day after day. No more fighting with his tormented mind for control over his life and actions. No more pain and suffering - only nothingness.

Eli accepted Dr. Boston's offer to move him up a level with a silent nod of his head. He ignored her heavy sigh, clearly intended to make him feel bad about not giving her what she wanted. He didn't care - all he wanted to do was go back to his room and fight for sleep. A childhood memory latched itself onto his stream of current thoughts. When he was younger, he believed that if you took every single last sleeping pill in the bottle, you would sleep forever. Even then, the thought of never having to wake up again had appealed to him. Had he always been this way but wasn't aware of it?

He left Dr. Boston's office and followed a line of blue tape to the small conference room that the group sessions were held in. For once, he didn't have an orderly glued to his side and the freedom of it was exhilarating to the highest degree. A gentle chorus of voices bled through from the other side of the door, causing Eli to stop and hover with his hand above the round knob. A part of him wanted to sprint down the maze of hallways back to his room and forget about the whole thing. The thought of being surrounded by a group of strangers at this point terrified him, and he didn't feel like being interrogated by anyone.

He knew that whoever was in charge of the group session would try to make him speak, and all he wanted to do was go unnoticed. A quiet cough sounded from down the hall and he turned, seeing an impatient orderly motioning for him to step inside. Sighing softly to himself, Eli gripped the handle and pushed the door open, his eyes taking in the small cluster of teenagers stationed in plastic chairs throughout the room. Dr. Starr glanced up and studied him for a moment before introducing him to the rest of the inmates.

He felt like it was his first day at a new school and he retreated to a chair in the back of the room away from everyone else. Standing there for a moment, he surveyed the sea of eyes that stared back up at him, until Dr. Starr's gravely voice told him to take a seat. He quickly retreated to a spot in the back of the room, away from everyone else. Everyone had stopped talking and instead had their heads turned to get a better look at him - it probably wasn't every day that a new person walked into the room. His cheeks were tinted a light pink as he felt their stares penetrating through the invisible barrier he'd constructed around himself.

Eli crossed his arms over his chest and sat back in his chair, keeping his gaze trained on the floor like he had in Dr. Boston's office. He silently willed the universe to transport him anywhere but here, preferably somewhere with a steep cliff and a rocky bottom. Not knowing exactly how long the session was scheduled to last, he forced his tense muscles to relax and listened to the renewed conversations that blossomed around the room.

Imogen stared blankly at her bedroom wall, the same wall that would look back at her for these strained couple of weeks. She always thought they desperately needed some colour, adding a bit of hope to this forlorn physicality. Tossing and turning, back and forth. That's what most of her nights and afternoons consisted of, her hope of being cured being long gone just like her own aspirations. Everyone had to be in this place for a reason, but she wasn't exactly interested in learning everyone's life stories. People have demons, secrets they keep inside until they eat them alive. At least that's what she's witnessed, herself being the perfect and prime example.

She had a considerably normal home life, different than most of the goers here. Though she harbored a lot of guilt, and dealt with her stress from an unhealthy perspective. Cutting; self mutilation- whatever you like to go by. It quickly developed into an addiction, a disease even. At least that's what they've told her over and over again. Each and every slice signified something in her eyes, the sweet and dazzling release.

Imogen's arm began to pulsate and she gazed down at the frayed, stained bandage, the multiple stitches holding all of the damage together- her damage. She was causing affliction to her own body, but that one moment of power and unyielding authority was all worth it to her. It was an undeniable rush, a daze you were stuck in as you watched the vibrant crimson blood slowly trickle and seep from your wrists. It was almost satisfying, yet weak concurrently.

"Time for your medicine," The knock on the door broke her reverie and she slowly got up from her stiff bed, staring at herself into the worn out mirror.

The deep bags under her eyes weren't only unattractive, but they signified the sleep she had lost from being in this place. Her hair obviously disheveled, Imogen's appearance wasn't the thing she was most concerned for lately. Stepping out of her room, she winced slightly from the bright lights down the hallway. It seemed as if the lights never came off, and the intensity of it all not only gave her a headache but it almost angered her.

When she reached where she received her daily medication, her foot abruptly tapped against the pearl tiling. Catching dirty looks given to her by the other patients wasn't an abnormal thing, and she easily learned to never look them into eye or to give them anything to hold against her. No one was better than anyone else here, underneath it all they were just a bunch of berserk lunatics.

Once it was her turn to go up to the counter, she only nodded when the nurse handed her the plastic cup and moved along. She took out the two oval shaped capsules and held them tightly in her hands. She craved to feel the high, to feel invincible and on top of the world instead of feeling like the succumb of the earth. Imogen wondered what her mom would think of her now, of how she was easily following in her footsteps.

The only person she really grew concerned for was her brother, the one who had to watch her turn her life to this jumbled mayhem. Knowing that the last memory he had of her was discovering her in the scarlet red bathtub caused a shiver to go up her spine. Shutting up her own thoughts and the demons in her head, she dry swallowed the pills and waited for it to take effect. She yearned to feel it flow in her veins, to distract her from her own uninhibited thoughts.

She looked up at the clock and realized that group would be starting any minute, so she spun on her heels and headed into the therapy room. Once inside, she took a seat against the wall and waited for Dr. Starr to begin the session. If she wasn't going to open up to her personally, why in the world would she open up to a cluster of random patients? The thought in itself was befuddling, thinking that relating to someone else could solve a dilemma completely. Thankfully she was on her own surge, the pills assisting her to block out the pool of droning speech. The squeak of the door opening caught her attention until someone new was revealed to her.

"Eli Goldsworthy," she repeated to herself in her awry head, her bloodshot eyes following him to the back of the room.

She shamelessly stared at him for a few moments before she turned away, focusing back on the task at hand. An array of questions hovered in her mind on why he was here, how he got here.. it was unmistakable that she felt a meager interest in the other boy. The discussion between all the inmates prolonged until the she was put on the spot.

"Imogen, why are you here exactly? Would you like to share?" Dr. Starr questioned her, Imogen's jaw slackening in response.

She absentmindedly traced the profound lines of her covered cuts, emitting a deep breath before her eyes snapped open.

"I guess this is why I'm here," She admitted, her hand trailing up her sleeve to reveal her arm immersed with hematic gauze.

"Hey, cool. Tell us about the blood." Someone commented, Dr. Starr's eyes widening before she cleared her throat.

"I think we're done for today, good job everyone." Imogen timidly smiled at her and then back at the new boy, getting up from her plastic chair.

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Oops, left it as kind of a cliffhanger there, hehe.

The more feedback we get the more we'll continue to write, and the faster at that! Reviews would be lovely.


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